Former Postal Employee Sentenced for Failing to Deliver Mail

BOSTON – A former Fitchburg postal employee was sentenced today in federal court in Worcester for failing to deliver mail.

Stephen Lehto, 37, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy to two years of probation. In January 2018, Lehto pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of mails.

While working as a postal carrier for the United States Postal Service in Fitchburg between June 2016 and January 2017, Lehto began taking mail home instead of delivering it along his route. Law enforcement received a tip and interviewed Lehto at his home. A search of his vehicle resulted in the recovery of 758 pieces of mail, 341 pieces of which were first class pieces of mail.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling and Eileen Neff, Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Area Field Office, United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle L. Dineen Jerrett of Lelling’s Worcester Branch Office prosecuted the case.

Share this post

Latest Blog Posts

Nearly a decade since its rollout, the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) — the football-field sized sorting machines for flats mail — is still falling short of expectations. At its inception, stakeholders were optimistic FSS would improve productivity and reduce the U.S. Postal Service’s costs for...

What do Millennials like? That’s the 43 million hits question — as in Google hits. And that’s a pretty good indication of just how focused businesses are on this generation and its rising economic power.

The U.S. Postal Service is no different. It wants to understand how Millennials might...

Latest Audit Asks

The Management Operating Data System (MODS) provides data on workload, work hours, and machine-use. In addition to supporting operational planning, MODS data are used extensively in Postal Service costing and pricing activities. Supervisors may manually enter or adjust employee work hours and...

In December 2016, Congress passed the Federal Property Management Reform Act (FPMRA). The purpose of the FPMRA is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government, including the Postal Service, in managing its property by:

The U.S. Postal Service considers mail to be delayed when it is not processed in time to meet the established delivery day. Delayed mail can adversely affect Postal Service customers and harm the organization's brand.

Comments Wanted

We encourage you to visit our blog, which has a new topic for discussion every Monday. You can also give us your thoughts and opinions about upcoming audits on our Audit Asks page. Please refer to our comment policy for further information.